


The Missing Pieces

by beren



Category: The Listener (TV)
Genre: F/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beren/pseuds/beren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tia's interference things have turned out better for Toby than his wildest dreams and he has a chance to reconnect with people he never thought he would see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missing Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/gifts).



Toby couldn't sleep. He hadn't even tried to go to bed before two in the morning. His mom was in the spare room and he really couldn't believe it even though he had just spent hours talking to her. It was as if his brain was rebelling. He could feel her at the back of his mind, a warm presence in a place that had been cold for far too long.

He hadn't remembered this part. Maybe out of simple self preservation, he had forgotten what it was like to have another telepath right there. To feel their love on a level he knew he could not bear to live without again. He could not comprehend how his mother had managed to give him up, even if it had saved his life.

Nothing would make his thoughts still. They had communicated in words and thoughts and images and feelings and his mind would not shut down now. He could already feel a migraine coming on, but for once he wasn't afraid of it. That was another thing his mother had explained. The headaches would come every time they stretched their abilities, but they were nothing to be afraid of. Like any other system in the body, when used in ways they were not used to their minds would take time to adapt.

Toby had definitely been using his mind in ways with which he was unfamiliar tonight.

The presence of his mother bloomed in his head and he opened up to her automatically. It was not like seeing into another's mind the way he did with everyone else, this was a mutual communication, something their brains did that no one else's could. It was at the same time the strangest and most natural thing he could do.

However, rather than words or images his mind filled with a gentle tune. It sparked recognition and memory and he flashed back to feeling warm and safe as a small boy in his mother's arms. Without even trying he felt himself beginning to relax as the lullaby flowed through his mind. It was as if the tune settled his raging thoughts, not wiping them away, but putting them to rest, at least for a little while. Ever so gently he slipped into sleep.

~*~

Tia had had to run to a meeting, leaving Toby with his mom at the breakfast table. It was still amazing to him to see her sitting there.

"What happened to my brother?" Toby finally asked the question he had been avoiding since the moment his mother walked in his door.

"They took him," was the quiet reply.

‘They’ was the only way his mother would refer to the people she had been running from. She refused to tell him who they were, only that they were dangerous.

"I didn't find him again until he was five," was the surprising continuation.

"You found him?"

His mother nodded, a faraway look in her eye.

"They have always underestimated me," she said and then turned to look at him. [I ran to save you and David,] she spoke directly into his mind, [I could never risk either of you, but I am not as helpless as I led them to believe.]

Toby wasn't sure he wanted to know why. The memories he had of her were very patchy and mostly panicked and he was beginning to realise there was a whole other side to his mother.

"They hid David well, but I eventually found him," his mother told him, "and then I hid him better."

"You gave him up as well?" Toby asked.

"Not completely," she said, "I couldn't, he needed me."

"More than I did?"

He couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Yes," she said and reached out to take his hand, smiling slightly in understanding. "They had him for five years, Toby, and they did unspeakable things to him. They wanted a full telepath, one who could send thoughts into other minds as well as hear them and they thought they could condition him into being what they wanted with drugs and indoctrination. He was barely a little boy when I managed to get him back, more a machine. I found him a place in a special school with friends who understood. It took years to bring him back and even to this day he can't speak. The words are there in his head, he just can't say them."

The idea appalled him. Just what his mother had saved him from began to sink in.

"That's why you finally ran," he said; "you knew what they would do to a helpless baby."

She nodded.

"I managed to protect you at first," she said, "but I glimpsed what they wanted to do to David and I knew I had to run. Victor was relentless, it was only after he was dead I knew I could finally disappear."

"You kept yourself out there as a target while he was alive," Toby said.

His mother looked surprised at his insight, but nodded again.

"I was the prize because I knew where both of you were," she said, "so I made sure he always remembered that."

Just how much his mother had sacrificed for him was staggering.

"I wanted to come get you so many times," she continued, "but I knew I couldn't. I am so proud of how you turned everything around. When you were in trouble was the hardest time to stay away. I even made it all the way into the city one time, but I realised I couldn't take you. They were too close."

"I dreamed about you," he said, "when I was in juvie. It helped me make the right decisions."

His mom put her hand to her mouth and he could see tears in her eyes.

"I tried to reach out to you," she said, taking a deep breath to steady herself, "but I thought it was too far."

"I heard you," he said.

They sat silently for a while, hands joined across the table, and the silence was soft and comfortable.

"Can I meet David?" Toby finally asked.

She squeezed his hand, considering that for a moment.

"Of course," she said, "I think you'll like each other. At the core you are very similar."

His stomach twisted at the thought and his chest fluttered with excitement and a little trepidation.

~*~

Toby kept playing with his fingers and his leg was jigging up and down like it was connected to a motor as his mother drove them through the countryside. There was no two ways about it; he was as nervous as hell. It was idiotic really, but meeting David seemed like such a big thing. He had only met his mother just over a day ago and it had been like slotting back into the familiar, however, he had never met his brother before.

Arranging time off had been easy; the Mayor was apparently talking medals of honour and commendations all round, so asking for a few days personal time had been immediately granted.

The main building loomed out of the trees as they came round a corner to some huge gates. It looked like a mansion, but the sign proclaimed it to be 'Parson's School for the Deaf'. The journey had only taken a couple of hours and Toby was amazed how close his brother had been all this time. His mother leaned out of the car window and hit the button on the intercom. After a quick exchange with a cheerful sounding person on the other end the gates swung open.

"Do the people here know about us?" Toby asked as they started their trip up the drive.

"No," his mother said, "David works here."

Toby couldn't help his surprise; after what his mother had told him about David he wasn't sure what he had expected.

[His gifts make him a perfect teacher for deaf children,] his mother said silently.

Which did make sense when Toby thought about it.

"I'm glad he found a place to belong," he said and couldn't help thinking how long it had taken him to find something that totally fit him.

He had loved being a paramedic, but it wasn't until he had joined Michelle and her team that he had really found his niche. Trusting people had been his breakthrough if he was being honest.

"Come on," his mother said after she pulled into a space, "he's dying to meet you."

"He knows we're here?" Toby asked.

[The conditioning made his abilities a great deal more acute than ours,] was the gentle explanation; [David has known we are nearly here for about a mile.]

Toby couldn't help the shock of nervousness that zipped up his spine at that.

"Will he like me?" he asked.

It was a ridiculous question; he knew it the moment he asked it, but he couldn't help it. He had never met his brother before, all he remembered was a baby, and he really didn't know how to react. His mother smiled at him and took his hand.

"I am sure you too will get along beautifully," she said; "I told you, you are so alike in so many ways."

Toby just nodded, doing his very best to push the anxiety down.

They walked around the side of the big house and his mother waved to a couple of people, so it was obvious she was known well here. When they stepped into a garden with a huge summer house, Toby just had to stop, because there in the glass sided building was the person he recognised instantly as his brother. There was no seconding guessing, no doubt, he was simply sure.

David was currently sitting in front of a boy no more than ten or eleven signing and smiling brightly at the child. The boy signed back, much more stilted than David's movements, but definitely communicating. Toby was suddenly very glad of the classes Oz had dragged him to. Oz had actually fancied the sign language teacher at the time and needed a wingman, but Toby wasn't about to complain. He was nowhere near fluent, but he did have an idea of what David and his young pupil were saying.

When David looked up and their eyes met it was with a thrill of recognition. David had the same eyes he did and Toby found himself walking forward before he even thought about it.

[Hello, Toby,] David greeted and signed at the same time.

[Hello,] Toby replied and signed back as well.

That produced the most enormous smile on David's face, even bigger than the one he had been showing his pupil. The boy in question turned to look and Toby saw him glance between them both. He couldn't see what the boy signed next, but David was nodding and they both stood up.

It was only as Toby stepped into the summer house, under the blower that was warming it, that he remembered he was nervous. However, this close he realised something else as well; David was nervous too.

[Toby this is Pete, Pete this is Toby,] David mentally said and signed at the same time.

Pete and Toby signed hello to each other in response. Then Pete signed something else very quickly and Toby only caught about half of it, because he was mentally concentrating on David.

[Sorry,] he apologised, projecting at David and doing his best to sign at Pete, [I'm out of practice.]

Pete then looked to David and signed something about 'not deaf', but Toby was too focused on his brother to be prepared to get all of it.

[No, Toby isn't deaf,] David signed back, translating for Toby as he did, [but he can read your mind.]

For a moment Toby was shocked, but then Pete burst out laughing as if it was the funniest joke ever.

[Hiding in plain sight,] David said silently, but he was grinning down at Pete.

Toby couldn't help it then; he laughed too. This was so not how he had pictured meeting his long lost brother, but it was so much better. Pete said something else to David with his hands and David replied and then the boy was off with a wave and a quick goodbye in all directions, which reminded Toby he and David were not alone, because he caught sight of their mother standing just behind him.

"My boys," she said, smiling brightly, "my beautiful boys."

For a moment Toby felt like he might cry, but luckily for him David grabbed him in a definitive neck hold and gave him a noogie.

[Gotta make up for lost time,] David crowed in his mind and Toby started laughing all over again.

[Dammit, you're taller than me,] Toby said as he was joyfully released, [how is that fair?]

[I got the looks too,] David said and Toby felt the divide between them evaporating as if it had never been.

[I thought this was a school for the deaf, not the blind,] he replied.

David gave him the most fantastic look of outrage and the last of Toby's nervousness evaporated.

"I told you, you were alike," their mother said and they answered her with matching grins.

Toby had never felt quite so at home in all the time he could remember. Everything was finally right.

~*~

They had stayed in the guest quarters at David's school for the night and David had seemed to take great delight into introducing Toby to everyone. His head was still spinning with all the new names and minds he had come into contact with. Since his sign language was rusty he had had to use his telepathy a lot more than he normally would have just to keep up.

Most of the day they had spent in the local town, where David had also introduced Toby to everyone, who all seemed to know his brother and mother well. It was a small community and they seemed to have a lot to do with the school. The majority seemed to all be able to use at least some sign language.

Now Toby was finally home. His mom had dropped him off with a promise to see him later and he kind of fell through the door in a haze.

"How'd it go?" Tia asked and he looked up to find her making tea.

They had spoken on the phone the previous night, but they hadn't said much really. Toby was a little cautious about what he would say over a phone even if his mom assured him the danger was minimal at the moment.

"Amazing," he said and smiled, shaking his head as all the memories piled over one another.

He walked over, dumping his bag on the floor and took her in his arms. Then he kissed her, trying to convey everything he was feeling.

"Thank you," he said, knowing that it wasn't adequate, but needing to say something anyway. "Without you I would never have seen either of them again."

"I didn't do mu..."

He silenced her with another kiss.

"You did everything," he said. "I love you and I am so glad you are who you are. I can never repay you for this."

Tia didn't try and contradict him this time, just smiled that little smile of hers.

"I can think of ways you can try," she said, her smile growing into something that was pure mischief.

"Really?" he asked and lifted his eyebrows.

The End


End file.
